Tagua is vegetable ivory. It is similar to the ivory taken from elephant tusks, but it is a plant material. The tagua nut is harvested from palm trees in the Amazonian region of South America. It grows wild, as a native species, not domesticated in plantations.

Anything that can be made from luxurious animal ivory can also be made with tagua: small decorative animals, bracelets, earrings, necklaces, rings, buttons, back-scratchers, pendants, Christmas ornaments and beads. Becuase tagua is eco and animal friendly, it is popular throughout the world for use in natural jewely and decorative items.

Questions About the Tagua Nut and Tagua Palm Tree

What is Tagua? The Tagua Nut? Vegetable Ivory?

We had been making and selling tagua jewelry for a few years, but never found a
tagua tree growing in the wild. While on vacation in Mindo, we found a few of these amazing trees with huge
seed pods. If only we had brought a machete to harvest them!

Tagua
is a dried ivory-like nut harvested from palm trees growing in the Amazonian region of South America. It is a
native species, not domesticated.
It is also known as:
‘ivory nut’, ‘vegetable ivory’, ‘ivory palms’, ‘corozo’ or ‘corozzo’,
and ‘yarina’.

The technical, scientific names for
Tagua are Phytelephas aequatorialis and Phytelephas macrocarpa.Phytelephas, signifies “elephant plant”,
being derived from two Greek words: phyton (plant) and elephas (elephant), referring to its ivory
qualities.“Aequatorialis” refers to the equator:
the region where this palm tree is native. And if you didn't already know it, Ecuador is the Spanish word for
equator.

Where are Tagua Nuts
Found?

The Tagua Palm Trees are most abundant in the Amazonian
rainforests, found in the wild, growing along riverbanks and recent flood
plains. Ecuador is the leading tagua exporting county. The tagua trees shown in these photos
were found along the Rio Mindo, just outside of Mindo in the Pichincha province of
Ecuador.

In Peru tagua is found in Loreto, San Martin, Amazonas, Huánuco and Junin.
Tagua is also found in
Bolivia, Colombia, Panama and Brazil.

What is tagua in English?

The word “tagua” is the same in both Spanish and English. However, it is known
as
palmivoor and steennoot in Dutch, steinnuss in German, binroji
in Japanese, and coquille in Brazil.

How do you pronounce the word Tagua?

Tagua can
be pronounced ”tah-gwa” or ”tah-wa”, the g can be either hard or
soft. Here in Ecuador we hear it spoken both ways.

What are the characteristics of Tagua?

The tagua palm is a
thorny plant with a height of five up to twelve metres. The tree bears fruit after growing for fifteen years,
yielding three harvests each year. The tree produces large woody clusters with pointed horns containing many
tagua nuts, with each nut being approximately the size of a walnut. Chemically, the tagua nuts are pure
cellulose. Before maturing, they are filled with a liquid creamy milk which is edible.
The unripe fruit of the Tagua Palm can be consumed without cooking and tastes like coconut. In an episode of Man vs
Wild on the Discovery Channel in 2008, Bear Grylls demonstrated the eating of tagua as a means of survival in
rainforests.

Besides being a food
source for native communities, tagua nuts are eaten by forest animals. When mature, the pods fall off the
tree and the nuts harden. They eventually become so hard that it takes a hacksaw to cut into them. But even
when hard they remain non-toxic. It’s these ripe hardened nuts that are used as “vegetable ivory”.